Data from Zillmann, Wenwr, Mundorf, and Aust's 1986 study suggested that when males viewed a horrorfilm, their l m l s of reported distress were correlated with levels of enjoyment or delight. For females, distress and delight were not related. Zillmann et al. interpreted these findings in the context of gender role socialization and excitation transfer theory. One limitation ofthe Zillmann et al. study is that only onefilm stimulus was used, which raises a question about thegeneralimbility of the pattern of reported sex differences. In addition, no physiological measures of emotional response were reported. In the present research, secondary analysesfrom two studies were conducted that showed that the pattern of sex differences reported by Zillmann et al. didgeneralize to otherfilm stimuli. Moreover, results from physiological responses indicated the plausibility of the excitation transfer process.ecent research by Zillmann, Weaver, Mundorf, and Aust (1986) and by Mundorf, Weaver, and Zillmann (1989) pro-R vided evidence for the notion that horror films may represent a modern-day social initiation rite that triggers very different responses in male viewers than it does in females. As support for this thesis, Zillmann et al. (1986) reported that an interesting counterintuitive relationship emerged between ratings of distress and ratings of enjoyment to the film, Friduy the 13th, Part 3. For males, ratings of distress were positivezy correlated with ratings of enjoyment. But for females, distress and enjoyment were unrelated. This result was interpreted in the general context of excitation transfer theory Glenn G. Spark is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication at Purdue University. The author thanks Melissa M. Spirek for her role as an experimenter and Dan Wilcox for writing a computer program that transforms physiological data for mainframe processing. Thanks are also due Cheri W. Sparks and Robert M. Ogles for their helpful comments on this article.

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To a preschool child, something that looks scary is frightening; to an older elementary school child, something that could happen s e e m to be more frightening than something that could not, independent of its appearance.The increasing popularity of scary themes on television and in films has heightened concern over the effects of frightening mass media presentations on children. This surge of interest in children's fears represents a swing back to the level of research attention that the topic enjoyed twenty, thirty, and even forty years ago (see 6, 7, 14, 23, 27). Today Singer (24) and other psychologists (e.g., 10, 17) argue that childhood fears, in general, are not receiving the research attention they deserve. Ollendick, for example, states that even mild to moderate fears cause psychological discomfort and may evolve into more persistent and excessive fear. In addition to the treatment of excessive fears and phobias, our efiorts should be focused on the prevention of, or at least constructive response to, these early "normal" fears (17, pp. 163-164).Studies dating as far back as the late nineteenth century (e.g., 12) have reported the different things that frighten children and often have

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